“Then that is settled,” said Saxon, “and I will make immediate preparations.”
On the day before Annie sailed to Canada she was seated in a London hotel. All the packing had been done. There were really no farewells to make. Mabel Lushington had never written to her from the day she had left Zermatt Lady Lushington had doubtless also forgotten her existence. Her school friends, if they thought of Annie Brooke at all, must think of her as one whose name should be spoken with bated breath, who was deceitful, who had gone far astray, and who had finally left her native land because it was best for her to turn her back on England. There was no one for Annie to say farewell to, unless indeed, Priscilla Weir. But she and Priscilla had never been real friends, and was it likely that Priscilla would think of her now? It made her head ache—for she was not nearly as strong as before her illness—even to try to remember Priscilla. She pressed her hand to her forehead. She and John Saxon and her other friends were to start early on the following day.
Just at that moment the room door was opened. The light had not yet been turned on. The days were a little dusky. A tall girl came hurriedly forward. She came straight up to Annie where she sat, dropped on one knee, and took one of her little, cold hands.
“Annie—Annie Brooke,” she said; “I am Priscilla. Have you nothing to say to me?”
Annie looked at her, at first with a sort of terror, then with a softened expression in her blue eyes; then all of a sudden they kindled, there was a smile round her lips, and a radiation spread itself over her wan little face. She flung her arms round Priscilla.
“Oh! Did you know I was going? Have you come to say good-bye?”
“I only heard it to-day from Mr Saxon,” said Priscilla. “Yes, I have come to kiss you, and to tell you that I, in spite of everything, love you.”
“You can’t,” said Annie. “You don’t know.”
“I know everything, Annie. Annie, we have both been in deep waters; we have both sinned, and God has forgiven us both.”
“I am going away,” said Annie restlessly. “When I am in another country I won’t hear that awful text echoing so often.”